Last updated on April 9th, 2022 at 09:19 am
Kenya’s finance ministry announced the government’s budget for the fiscal year 2022/23 on Thursday, with the goal of recovering the economy. The budget is still awaiting approval by Parliament. An estimated $28 billion budget from Ukur Yatani was proposed on Thursday. It was meant to help an economy that had been hit hard by the COVID-19 outbreak, which has resulted in the loss of many jobs.
The budget for 2022–2023, which was released four months before the national elections, comprises billions of dollars in infrastructure projects spearheaded by outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta and largely funded by China. Treasury Secretary Ukur Yatani told parliament that the budget intends to “put the economy back on a more sustainable growth path.” According to him, the Kenyan economy will grow at a rate of 6% this year, down from 7.6% the previous year. The GDP fell by 0.3 percent in 2020, the first decrease since 1992. The 3.3 trillion shilling ($28 billion) budget shows the government’s dilemma: help Kenyans buy more things, or raise taxes to help the government pay its bills.
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Mr. Yatani wants to reduce the fiscal deficit this year from 7.5 percent of GDP to 6.2 percent.The government would also spend 146 billion shillings ($1.27 billion or 1.1 billion euros) on the “Big Four” initiative, which establishes four goals for the country: health, housing, food security, and industrial growth, if the budget is approved by parliament.
The global coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on Kenya’s tourism industry, which is one of the country’s main cash generators. More than 700,000 people will have lost their jobs by 2020, and Kenyans will continue to pay exorbitant rates for basic consumer items like food and petrol, despite drought in major parts of the nation.
